Harbor Police officer shoots, kills man in Point Loma

Anthony Ashford, 29, was fatally shot by San Diego Harbor Police Officer Sulimoni Ahfook on Oct. 27, 2015 in a parking lot at the Holiday Inn on Harbor Drive near Nimitz Boulevard. Ashford was not carrying a weapon, but San Diego police investigators said he tried to grab the officer’s pistol.

A Harbor Police officer fatally shot a man near a Point Loma hotel late Tuesday night after the officer spotted the man peering into cars in a nearby parking lot and the two struggled over the officer’s gun, a San Diego police homicide lieutenant said.

The shooting came after the officer parked near the Holiday Inn on Harbor Drive near Nimitz Boulevard around 10:45 p.m. and went to talk to a man he believed was casing cars near several restaurants, homicide Lt. Paul Rorrison said Wednesday.

After getting out of his car, the officer was “immediately attacked” by the man in the hotel parking lot, Rorrison said.

As the two struggled and fell to the ground, the man tried to take the officer’s gun with both hands. As they fought, the officer’s Taser deployed, striking the man and the officer, Rorrison said.

The officer was able to stand up and, as the suspect continued to fight, he fired his gun once, hitting the man in the torso. The man who was killed has not been identified.

Rorrison said he was black and in his 30s.

Rorrison said hotel security had ejected the man from the by Holiday Inn lobby for creating a disturbance.

The officer is a 9-year veteran of Harbor Police and was hospitalized with moderate injuries, including scrapes and injuries consistent with being Tased, Rorrison said.

Harbor Police are not outfitted with body cameras, so there is no footage of the shooting from the officer’s perspective. Rorrison said police are asking people in nearby businesses whether they had surveillance cameras that captured the shooting. Police also were trying to find any witnesses.

Harbor Police have been involved in three fatal shootings since the agency was established in 1963.

In July 2008, police shot a dancer who had jumped off a cruise ship chartered for a party celebrating San Diego’s gay-pride weekend.

Officer Clyde Williams fatally shot Steven Paul Hirschfield, 37, of Los Angeles after he and a partner were sent to pull him from the water. The shooting came after Hirschfield initially refused to get into the ship’s rescue boat and subsequently used a line thrown by the officers to pull himself onto the boat. He scuffled with them once on board and was shot, according to police accounts of the incident. The District Attorney’s Office ruled the shooting was justified.

In 1998, 31-year-old Raad Wadie Jabro was shot when he lunged at officers while holding two knives near an Embarcadero hotel. Three officers involved in that case – Officers Robert Adauto III, Kathleen M. Fabregas and David W. Snyder – fired a total of 11 shots when Jabro lunged at them, according to police reports.

That shooting also was determined to be justified by the District Attorney’s Office.